Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)
Attila Debreceni: The Notion of the "Sublime" in Contemporary English, French and Hungarian Literary Criticism
6 ATTILA DEBRECZENI well as in Italy and Germany. I would only like to point out the contact points of this dichotomy with the notion of the sublime. The notion of the sublime breaks away from rhetoric in the second half of the XVIIth century as is pointed out in terms of the French literature by Théodore A. Litman. Its interpretation had been worked out by the middle of the XVIIIth century (let us think of Burke), which is closely related to the contemporary emotionalist tendencies: this is exactly why the sublime is judged to belong to romanticism (preromanticism). The link between the sublime and emotionalism, however, is so tight that the notion seems closed in other directions. German art theory thinkers also striving to grasp at the notion of the sublime such as Winckelmann and his followers introduced the notions of grace, reinterpreted beauty and harmony, and perfection. Traditions of art criticism analysing this direction elaborated the theory of neoclassicism. Let us not forget, however, that this means interpreting the sublime too, but it is different from its emotionalist variant. By virtue of what has been said it is no wonder that Winckelmann's name cannot be found in Samuel Monk's excellent book, and that Peter de Bolla 2" criticising Monk for disregarding the differences between English and German traditions does not put down his name either, though it is him who analyses the 1750s and 1760s (while focussing on English literature though). The notion of the sublime does not occur in monographies by Abrams and Wellek in connection with what might be identified as efforts by Winckelmann, and Abrams does not even mention it. It is only in a monograph by Dominique Peyrache-Leborgne from the works on the sublime (the ones that I know of) that I found reference to another interpretation of the sublime, and even she mentions Winckelman as opposed to Diderot: "C'est «la belle nature» et «certain beautés idéales de cette nature» qui constituent pour lui le support du sublime. [...] le terme «sublime» («erhaben») reléve d'une conception platonicienne de «la beauté comme Idée», mais incarnée dans la forme; il est surtout un équivalent de la perfection, une représentation finie de l'infini. [...] Avec Winckelmann, le sublime se trouve done dans l'ouvre d'art définie comme «totali té autosuffisante», intérieurement cohérente, «sans autre fin qu'elle-méme»". 2 1 2 0 Op. cit., 293. 2 1 Op. cit., 125-126.
